2011 Super Chevy Show Rockingham - Rock-Solid Revival

The Super Chevy Show made a grand return to Rockingham Dragway for the penultimate event of the 2011 season.

It was a packed show field the whole weekend, with everything from awesome factory restored cars to some wild restomods.

The Super Chevy Show hadn't dropped anchor at Rockingham Dragway since 2001, a 10-year gap that left many a Bow Tie nut going into withdrawal. The term "triumphant return" might be overly dramatic, but truth be told the first day of the show on Saturday told myself and freelancer Rod Short that the SC Show series had definitely been missed at The Rock.

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The Dragway was first opened in 1970 and has been in continuous operation for over 40 years. Current track owner Steve Earwood purchased the facility in '92 and has been working the whole time to improve the venue so it can stay on par with other dragstrips.

The weekend began with a cruise from RK Motors' impressive Charlotte showroom to Rockingham. RK Motors goes beyond being a toy store for car guys. It's more like a palace of automotive dreams and desires. Even if you don't have the wallet to afford one of the cars on the showroom floor, just walking through the showroom gives you some idea what it must've been like to work at a dealership during the muscle car era. RK's Jamie Wiehe was nice enough to show the cruise group around before it was time to hit the road for the show. For more on RK Motors, check out its website www.rkmotorscharlotte.com.

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Arriving at the track, it was great to see the show car area filled fence to fence with great Chevys. Choosing participants for our AMSOIL Best of the Best voting was easy because we had so many cars, but equally tough with so many great and worthy cars to choose from. On the racer side, the pits were full of great cars ready to light up the quarter-mile.

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Before Joe DeTullio got ahold of this '66 Biscayne, it was just an Aztec Bronze six-cylinder grocery-getter still with its original owners. Having always wanted a '66 427 Biscayne, Joe took it and added the correct vintage parts to make a clone of the fullsize bruiser. Even with its sedate exterior, the car still looked ready to eat the lunch of any Ford or Mopar that got too close.

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It was a packed show field the whole weekend, with everything from awesome factory restored cars to some wild restomods.

It was a packed show field the whole weekend, with everything from awesome factory restored cars to some wild restomods.

It was an excited group that participated in the RK Motors Cruise on Saturday. After scarfing some doughnuts and coffee, we got a tour of the RK Motors facility and had a chance to drool over all the fantastic Detroit iron in the showroom.

One of the more interesting classics was this '69 Camaro, the actual pace car used for the U.S. Grand Prix at Watkins Glen.

Charlie Ward was in the swap meet selling his wares and couldn’t resist proudly showing us his ’97 SC Show Rockingham jacket.

Danny Gouveia from nearby Charlotte, North Carolina, was on hand with his 409-cid-powered “Carolina Thunder” Nostalgia Super Stock car and made several full-power, chassis-twisting passes much to the delight of the crowd.

The 5th-Gen Camaros of the Carolinas club came out in force with almost 100 fifth-gens and a few fourth-gens. In addition, we had a whole other line of fifth-gens in the show car area.

We’re just speechless …

Rickie Smith debuted his 2012 Camaro in eighth-mile action against Doug Winters’ 1957 Chevy and recorded a best time of 3.978 seconds at 188.38 mph against a 4.033 at 181.06 mph. Smith was running a new Sonny Leonard monster motor that was displacing 900-plus cubic inches.

It was great to see these two beautiful Bow Tie haulers at the show. The Apache was especially cool.

It was great to see these two beautiful Bow Tie haulers at the show. The Apache was especially cool.

There were some neat deals to be found in the swap meet, like this Borg-Warner 9-bolt rear out of a third-gen Camaro. After the Z28s and IROCs started breaking the lame 7.5-inch Vega 10-bolt rear, Chevrolet replaced the rears in certain cars with either a Dana 44 or this unit that had more strength than the stock rear.

Jeff Lover inherited this Nomad from his father-in-law, who bought it new the day Jeff’s wife was born. Originally Sierra Gold with a 283/3-spd combo, Jeff gave it a mild restomod job, fresh motor, and new paint.

The fall of 1966 heralded the end of the Mustang’s brief dominance of the pony car market. As soon as 396-powered rockets like Ronald Poteat’s car started hitting the streets later in the model year, the Ford guys went running for cover.

For the Rockingham show we didn’t have our usual Chevy Cruze rental car. Our good friend Jim Barber let us borrow his ’70 SS396 Chevelle to cruise in style for the event. Driving this car was an absolute blast! Thanks again, Jim, for letting us put almost 400 miles on your car.

Fire! Fire! Fire!

In contrast to the rusty white ’73 shown earlier, John Fox’s ’71 Z28 looks just like it did when new. The year 1971 marked the first of lower compression, so the LT1’s output dropped to 330 hp (gross), but it still packed a solid lifter cam and a lot of punch.

In contrast to the rusty white ’73 shown earlier, John Fox’s ’71 Z28 looks just like it did when new. The year 1971 marked the first of lower compression, so the LT1’s output dropped to 330 hp (gross), but it still packed a solid lifter cam and a lot of punch.

Check out the final event of the 2013 Super Chevy Show at the Rockingham Dragway! We had to stop for a sec and make sure 12 months had already passed since our last sojourn to The Rock. We'd seen thousands of awesome Chevys in the show fields and an equal number of impressive racecars blasting down the dragstrip. » Read More